Washington ? Public opinion has been gradually shifting toward more acceptance of gay rights, but a new poll suggests a backlash after the Supreme Court decision striking down a Texas law banning gay sex.

A CNN-USA Today-Gallup poll released this week shows people about evenly divided on whether homosexual relations should be legal. In the poll, taken Friday through Sunday, 48 percent said such relations should be legal and 46 percent said they shouldn’t.

That’s a significant change from early May, when 60 percent said that such activity should be legal and 35 percent said it should not.

Frank Newport, executive editor of the Gallup Poll, said, “The trends had clearly been moving up in terms of public acceptance of the legality of homosexual relations and also on other gay and lesbian measures in the polls.” But in two separate polls in July, Gallup surveys detected a shift against gay rights.

The Gallup data showed those who were changing their views recently tended to be conservatives, moderates and people who attend church.

The Gallup poll showed that those who say homosexuality should be considered an acceptable lifestyle had dropped from 54 percent in May to 46 percent, and the number who thought it should not had increased 6 points to about half.

The two most recent Gallup polls were taken after the 6-3 ruling in which the Supreme Court threw out the Texas law prohibiting gay sex acts, saying such a statute violates privacy rights under the Constitution.

Backers of gay rights predicted the decision could eventually lead to the legalization of gay marriage, though few were predicting when that might happen.